A Mission
by AthenaMay24
Summary: After Simmons disappears, Fitz blames himself and sets out on a mission to save her. Meanwhile, the people who have orchestrated her capture have their own plans. Takes place immediately after season 2. Spoilers for the finale. Heavy on the FitzSimmons, but contains minor Huntingbird. All main characters eventually make an appearance. I own nothing.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This fic came out of a conversation with lilAzIaNpride24 in which I randomly spit out a little theoretical dialogue and she decided I should turn it into a fic. Not my original plan, but here it is. This takes place immediately after season 2. It focuses on FitzSimmons, but includes some Huntingbird and, of course, all characters are present at some point. This has not been betaed, so it's liable to have mistakes.**

Ch. 1 Transported Guilt

Jemma was somewhere cold and dark. She was quite perturbed at the cold, dark place. And moist. The place was also moist, now that she thought about it. The really, _really_ perturbing thing, however, was that she couldn't breathe.

She gasped, which ended up being a mistake. The cold, dark, moist place got down her throat and up her nose. It coated her skin, sunk into her clothes, settled between every follicle of hair, wormed into her ears, slipped in-between her toes. The place wasn't a place, as much as it was a thing. A cold, dark, moist thing that was about to kill her.

And, to think, she was missing a date with Fitz for _this_.

~o0o~

Doubts assailed Leo all the way to Jemma's room. He thought he'd read her right, but it seemed like the only time they weren't perfectly in synch was when it came to their feelings. It had taken imminent peril and possibly death before they could even bring the subject up.

So, what if, in fear of losing her best friend, Simmons imagined her feelings?

What if she just felt guilty about not reciprocating?

What if she was in her room right now wondering why she'd agreed?

Actually, had she agreed? Did she ever actually say yes?

There was nothing for it now, but to knock, so Leo tentatively tapped on Simmons's door. And tapped again. And tapped again. Finally, he was practically pounding. Hurt welled up a little and he shouted, "Fine! If you don't want to go to dinner, you could have just said so. You don't have to be a coward and not answer the door!"

He turned around, about to stalk angrily away, but he knew if he did he'd lose what was probably the best chance he had at making this work. He knocked once final time. "Jemma, you're not a coward. I'm sorry I said that. I just—please come talk to me. You don't have to come to dinner. Please?"

Of course, there was no answer, but Fitz obviously did not know why. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open. There was Simmons's room, as neat and prim as she was. Nothing looked touched. The lights were out, the room empty.

"Bloody hell," Fitz ran his fingers through his hair, "I've been yelling at an empty room." But where was Jemma?

~o0o~

Jemma was about to suffocate. She'd been in the goo for what felt like an eternity, but she knew it wasn't. She knew precisely how long she could go without oxygen, and she knew that that time was almost up. Just as she was resigning herself to death, she suddenly could breathe and cough and splutter. There was some king of light in her face, but she was afraid to open her eyes because she knew, somehow, that she was a long way from home.

~o0o~

"Coulson!" Fitz strode into the Director's office indiscriminately, not caring that about the people talking inside.

"Fitz, we're in the middle of something," Hunter said, annoyed. He was leaning over Coulson's desk, with an almost aggressive posture toward the now one-armed man.

Fitz could now tell that he was interrupting something but, in his eyes, it was nowhere near as important as what he had to tell Coulson.

"Look, all I'm saying is, she's been tortured by Ward the psychopath. She shouldn't be allowed to make her own decisions!" Hunter continued his argument with Coulson, not paying a bit of attention to Fitz's presence.

"Lance, if Bobbi wants to leave, I can't stop her, you know that," Coulson said apologetically. "I might be more inclined to listen to you if I thought your concern was prompted by something other than not wanting her to leave you," he added.

"Uh, guys?" Fitz tried to break in, but both men ignored him.

"She's injured! She should be watched!"

"I'm sure she would love hearing you say that," Coulson deadpanned, reaching for his phone.

Fitz once again began to interject, but Skye came barging in, effectively cutting him off. "Guys, I want a dog," she said.

"A dog?" Coulson asked. "And does anyone knock anymore?"

"It's a dying art form," Mack said was he too entered the office. "Looks like I missed the party invitation."

Fitz was getting fed up. Hunter turned to Coulson one last desperate time, "Have Simmons put her under psych evaluation, run tests, something. Don't let her leave yet. Give me time to get through to her first."

Coulson finally looked at Fitz, "Do you think Simmons would do it?"

"Probably, but good luck getting her to!" Fitz exploded, "That's what I've been trying to tell you! She's disappeared."

~o0o~

The light was getting brighter and brighter. Before, Jemma was afraid to open her eyes because of what she might see; now she knew if she opened them, she'd probably be blinded.

Out of nowhere, a powerful, echoing voice blasted her, "Ahh," it said, "The little one can't take the light."

The light cut off.

"Who are you?" Jemma shouted, more bravely than she felt. Her voice sounded tiny against the overpowering one before it, and she kept her eyes clenched shut.

"Why won't you look, small one?" the voice asked, its tone and presence softer now. "I'm sure you'll find us beautiful. We've chosen you."

"Chosen me for what? Who are you?" Jemma demanded.

"Open your eyes and see."

Jemma swallowed, took a deep breath, and did as she was told.

~o0o~

"What do you mean she's disappeared?" Skye asked, "You were just with her studying the freaky stone."

"The stone?" Mack asked, stiffening. His distaste and fear of the alien was evident. "You were messing with it?"

"Everybody calm down," Coulson commanded, "Fitz, tell us what happened."

Fitz took a deep breath. He hadn't thought about the fact that he'd have to tell them he asked Simmons on a date.

"Fitz?"

"I-uh, we were talking. She'd just finished up her tests," Fitz swallowed, "I-asked-her-on-a-date," he said in a rush, closing his eyes. When no one responded, he opened his them again.

"And then?" Coulson prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"And then I left. Haven't seen her since. She's not anywhere," Fitz sighed, "I think we should look at the cameras."

During the short walk to the surveillance room, Skye approached Fitz, "I'm proud of you, you know," she said.

"For what?" Fitz asked bitterly, "Losing my best friend?"

"What, she's not your girlfriend now?" Skye bumped his shoulder lightly, trying to cheer him up. "I'm proud of you for taking the plunge."

Fitz winced at the water metaphor. "Yeah, well, she did, not me. Before we left for the ship, she told me that she—"

"I got it," Skye spared him from having to put labels on whatever had happened between him and Simmons "That's great, Fitz. I'm happy for you."

"I just hope she's okay," he replied.

~o0o~

"There, you see me now," the voice came from a blue man, his face decorated with black war paint.

"But I still don't know who you are," Jemma answered, looking around. She was in some kind of large audience chamber. It was dark, but she knew better than to think it was always that way. The most noticeable feature was that the landscape outside the large window was completely unfamiliar to her. Her original suspicions had been terribly correct. She was no longer on earth. The thought made her want to sob, but by sheer force of will, she kept her composure.

"I think you do. We've been watching you. You're fairly smart, for a human," the blue man said.

"Are you a Kree?" Jemma stood up, trying to get herself closer to the level of the mad, if you could call him a man.

"Very good, little one."

"What do you want with me? Why am I here?" Jemma couldn't control the quiver in her voice.

"We need you to fight."

"Fight?"

"Fight the so called 'Inhumans'. Our experiments have become too rowdy," The Kree sneered.

"How can I fight them?" Jemma quelled the sense of panic inside of her, playing along as if she would actually think of hurting the Inhumans.

"We will teach you, do not worry."

~o0o~

There it was, plain as day. Fitz could not believe his eyes. He'd made Coulson play the tape twice. But there was no mistake.

The grainy little image showed him, walking towards Simmons. Leaning up against the glass containment unit as he struggled to get his proposition known. Leaving the room, a spring in his step and an opening in the container. The stone liquefying and swallowing up Simmons before returning to its original form as if nothing had happened. The look of horror frozen on Simmons' face as she was sucked into the stone. It was all stuck in his head, plastered on his consciousness.

"It's all my fault," Fitz breathed, "What have I done?"

 **A/N Please let me know what you think! Like I said, I wasn't planning this, so I'm taking the pantser approach and going with the flow with this one. Updates will be infrequent because I'm working on what's supposed to turn out to be a novel (we'll see) and I really want to focus more on that than on fanfiction, but I'm trying to write them both simultaneously.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Here is chapter two. I want to thank everyone who's reviewed. Oh, and all the info I got about the Kree came from .**

Determined Decisions

Fitz was out of ideas. He ran his hands through his hair, muttering formulas, theorems, anything that popped into his head. He couldn't help thinking that he would have been able to figure this out before he took a dip in the ocean. The old Fitz could have gotten Jemma back by now.

"How is it going?" Skye asked, coming up behind him and making him jump.

Fitz grunted, "I'm getting nowhere." He looked up, "But I know the rest of you have bigger problems."

Skye was taking over her mother's position as leader of the Inhumans. So far she had to do it from afar, because she refused to leave SHIELD until they got some kind of answer about Simmons. "Don't worry about us," Skye said decidedly. "You know that we'd be right her helping you if we could." Fitz nodded, feeling dejected. "Why don't you take a break?" Skye suggested, "Bobbi wants to talk to you."

Bobbi was sitting up in her hospital bed when Fitz arrived. "Hey, how are you doing?" she asked, which was ironic considering she was the one with a broken leg and a gunshot wound.

"I've made no progress. Mack still won't let us get close to the stone, so I have no way to collect first hand data," Fitz plunked himself in the chair by Bobbi's bed. He idly wondered why Hunter vacated it, and if he and Bobbi got in some kind of altercation.

"I didn't ask how the search was going, I asked how you were doing," Bobbi corrected gently. Fitz didn't answer, so she continued, "Look, I know how hard it is to lose—think you've lost—the person you love. And I know what it's like to have to work beside that person every day, knowing you can't be together, or you can't tell them, or you have a secret, or you—" she stopped herself, smiling slightly, "Basically, it's hard."

"It's hell," Fitz squeezed his eyes shut. "But Jemma could _literally_ be in hell, and I can't seem to do anything to help her."

"You want to know something I've learned?" Bobbi touched Fitz's arm so that he'd look at her, "There's always something you can do." She gave him a meaningful look.

Fitz nodded and stood up. "Thanks, Bobbi." He started for the door, but paused, "Can—can you tell everyone that, except what's happened to Jemma, I wouldn't trade a single thing?"

Bobbi nodded, "Of course."

~o0o~

The Kree were never cruel to her, but the treated Jemma with little to no respect. She began to feel badly about the lab animals she'd used in the past.

That's exactly what she felt like. In the beginning, she didn't feel any different after the 'treatments,' or the strange ritual they put her through where she lay on a cold marble slab while a machine powered by some kind of gems created an energy field around her body. Sometimes she spent the night on those cold slabs, sometimes no more than five minutes. In between these sessions, they taught her things about her 'mission', about the Inhumans, about the galaxy, and about how she was their 'golden warrior.'

Of course, Jemma didn't want to go to Earth and slay innocent Inhumans (not to mention harming Skye, heaven forbid) so she tried to pretend to be stupid, to not understand. Unfortunately, they _had_ been studying her, and they knew exactly how fast she could retain information.

After a week (by her best estimation, she couldn't be sure of anything) she did begin to feel different after coming out of the energy field. She asked the nicer of her two 'professors' about it in the lesson that followed.

The instructor, Kam-Do, smiled secretively at Jemma's query, but otherwise ignored it. "Why did the Kree first take interest in the Terran solar system?" Kam-Do repeated her test question.

"But—" Jemma began.

"Why did the Kree first take interest in the Terran solar system?"

"After the beginning of the war with the Skrulls, the Kree thought Uranus was a strategic military position," Jemma said quickly. "But, Kam-Do—"

"Shush about it," Kam-Do commanded. "You will know more when you are ready."

Jemma wasn't going to give up that easily. Kam-Do was the nicest Kree that she'd come in contact with, and she knew that the older alien woman had somewhat of a heart (figuratively, the Kree anatomy was quite unknown to Jemma). She began to cry. It wasn't hard to conjure up tears; she'd been holding them back for days.

Kam-Do looked slightly taken aback by Jemma's outburst. "I do not understand," Kam-Do said, "This should not upset you."

Jemma sniffed loudly, her mind working furiously, "Kam-Do," she looked the alien woman in the eye, "Have you ever been in love?"

~o0o~

Fitz stood before the Kree stone. After his talk with Bobbi, he'd done a lot of thinking. What he'd told the Mockingbird was completely true: he wouldn't give up anything that had happened for the world. But he also did not want to go on without Jemma by his side.

As he'd left the medical ward, Skye'd approached him in the hallway. Her concern was touching, but Fitz knew he had to do this alone. He managed to put her off with vague statements about having another experiment to do, before practically running to his room to pack a bag.

Now, he glared balefully at the container around the stone. He hated even being in the room with the thing, but this was the only way he could think to get his partner back.

~o0o~

"Love?" Kam-Do cocked her head.

"Yes," Jemma said, trying to hide her excitement. She'd finally gotten Kam-Do to stop spouting facts from Ancient Alien History.

"Love makes you cry?"

"It can," Jemma wiped her eyes, "It can also make you happy, or jealous, or embarrassed." She paused, "Or scared. Right now, I'm scared."

"We have done nothing to frighten you," Kam-Do said briskly.

"You do not scare me," Jemma lied, "I'm scared because you're changing me." Kam-Do looked puzzled. "I know you've been watching me. Do you know the male I'm always with? Really smart, nerdy? He was with me when you took me?"

"Leopold Fitz," Kam-Do said, "We considered him first, but you showed a greater hatred of Inhumans."

"Yes, Leo Fitz. I'm in love with him," Jemma confessed. Why was that a lot easier to say to an alien than it was to Fitz himself?

"I fail to see the correlation—"

"It correlates because he's on Earth right now, looking for me. I know he is. And he's going to hurt himself. The sooner I go back to Earth, the sooner I can stop him," Jemma interrupted. "I know that whatever you're doing to me is changing me, and I know that when you're finished I won't be who I was. I've accepted that," she took a deep breath, "But I don't want Fitz to get hurt. I want you to hurry, so I can go back and tell him he can stop looking. I want to know if it will even be safer for me to see him again. You won't tell me, and so I'm scared."

Kam-Do was silent. "I do not understand love," she said finally, "Kree women use mental means to get mates. But I do not want you to be scared. That would not be beneficial."

Jemma closed her eyes, steeling herself for what she was about to ask for, "Can you finish the process? Get it over with. Not that your history isn't interesting, but I've watched the machine, and I don't see why you have to prolong this."

"I will see what I can do," Kam-Do left Jemma alone in her small room. Now she did not have to fake the tears. By getting to whole thing over with, even if a rescue came, it would be too late. She would no longer be who (or even what) she was, and she could no longer be with Fitz when she got back. But, this way, Fitz would be safe. That's all that matters.

~o0o~

Apparently, Fitz hadn't done as good a job at deterring Skye as he thought he did. She was there, with Coulson, Hunter, and Mack, banging on the door. He was glad, now, that he'd taken the time to fix the lock after he broke into the cargo hold. Ignoring his friends, he hefted the bag further up his shoulder.

The container made a whooshing noise as its airtight seal broke.

Fitz, thinking of Jemma's face, took a step toward the exposed Kree stone.

 **A/N I'm not sure how many chapters I have left planned, but, like I've said, updates will be sporadic. Please drop a review if you can!**


	3. Chapter 3

Fitz decided that being incased in the Kree stone was basically like being underwater. The stone-liquid seeped immediately into everything, but if he pinched his nose and kept his mouth firmly shut, it was no more uncomfortable that sitting at the bottom of a pool. Except that he couldn't move.

Being forewarned, he'd known to take the precaution of holding his breath, so he didn't panic like Jemma had. That meant that he didn't get to experience the stone worming its way up his nose or slithering down his throat. He focused on describing the stone's attributes in a scientific manner in order to keep from freaking out as his oxygen and his time dwindled.

The stone was not wet, but it was cool. It was viscous, but when pressed upon it did not give. It was slick but it was—it was gone.

Fitz felt air around him again, and let out a ragged breath, his eyes opening of their own accord.

~o0o~

The pain was excruciating.

It was blinding.

It was . . . slowing down.

Jemma could think again. She was still in the machine, but the change was almost over. Something was happening. People, or Kree rather, were rushing around, leaving her behind. What was going on?

She did not have much time to speculate, because she soon lost consciousness.

~o0o~

As Fitz looked around the expansive room he'd entered, he began to feel like his rash action had not been for the best. He was not in the audience chamber where Simmons had first opened her eyes (not that he knew that) but in some kind of lab. He turned and saw a stone so much like the one he'd come through that he took and involuntary step backwards. Hopefully that stone would be the way back.

The lab he'd entered had every indication of being hastily vacated. There was some kind of light coming through a doorway to his left. It seemed as good a route as any, so he crept forward.

~o0o~

Jemma, through her sleep, heard voices muttering about an attack. The leader of the Kree, the first one she'd met, was barking orders about defense positions and saying that the experiment would have to wait.

The other voice, that of Kam-Do, replied that there had also been some kind of other small breach detected. She seemed more worried about the small intruder than her leader thought she should be.

"Do not worry," he told her, "That instrument is old and faulty. Just stand watch over our prize." And by prize he meant Jemma.

Jemma was awake now, but pretending not to be. She listened intently as Kam-Do left, undoubtedly to stand guard outside the door. Jemma was alone.

Actually, not quite. Someone else came in through another doorway. Someone who gasped and called her name.

~o0o~

The light Fitz saw came from a platform in the middle of the room. Pink, orange, and yellow lights swirled around in a dazzling display that abruptly cut off before he could make sense of them. They left behind Jemma, lying prone on the slab.

Fitz gasped, "Jemma," and ran toward her.

Jemma opened her eyes to see Fitz leaning over her. He was fumbling with the manacles that held her to the table. Finally, he got her free and she slowly sat up.

She touched the side of his face, wonder written on hers. "You're here," she finally said.

Fitz looked down guiltily, muttering, "I should have been all along."

"Oh, Fitz," Jemma laughed softly, "You were." He met her eyes again, smiled, and kissed her.

~o0o~

When Lance came barging into Bobbi's room in the middle of the night, she knew it was because of what she'd told Fitz. She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to speak, but he didn't, so she asked calmly, "Did Fitz . . ?"

"Yes!" Lance got his voice back, "He went and bloody jumped onto the alien silly putty! Are you happy?" he demanded, "Because all I can figure is that you told him to!"

"I told him that if he felt he needed to do something, he should do it, despite what Coulson or Mack said," Bobbi responded softly, not showing the least bit of remorse.

"Yeah, well thanks to you we've lost bother of them," Lance began pacing next to Bobbi's hospital bed.

"We don't know they're dead," Bobbi reprimanded him. "And, for God's sake, sit down before you wear a track in the floor!" she added, sounding exasperated. At least she sounded something other than calm; Lance was getting annoyed at her cool attitude.

He plunked down in the chair, wearing a rebellious look. "Since when are you the optimist?" he muttered.

"Maybe you rubbed off on me." Bobbi sighed, "Look, he was beating himself up. Did you notice that he stopped eating? I know what it's like to be in his place. He wasn't going to _ever_ be okay again unless he did something."

Lance also sighed, and put his head in his hands, "But he's not us, Bob."

"No," she reached over and took his hand, "But he's human. And he's in love," she paused and then added on a lighter note, "Not being like us will probably work in their favor."

Lance smiled grimly, but couldn't help adding in his mind, _Only if they get out of this alive._

~o0o~

Jemma did kiss him back, but she pushed Fitz away gently before long.

"Sorry," he said immediately, "I—"

"We need to talk," Jemma interrupted, "But not now." Fitz nodded. "How did you get here?" she asked.

"The stone, same as you."

Jemma looked confused and concerned, "They took you too?"

"No, I came myself," Fitz was also confused. He hadn't realized they had purposely taken Jemma.

"You did what?" she demanded. "Why would you do that?"

"To find you, duh," Fitz helped her down from the slab. "Let's go, there's another stone in there. It should take us home."

"You're the small disturbance Kam-Do was talking about," Jemma said to herself, following Fitz.

As if on cue, Kam-Do burst through the door. FitzSimmons froze, still holding hands. "You were right," Kam-Do said. "He did come for you." Jemma didn't say anything. "But he shouldn't have."

"Kam-Do, please," Jemma began.

"We might not kill him," the Kree woman continued. "It's up to the Council."

" _Jemma_ ," Fitz hissed, tugging on her hand. She nodded, not taking her eyes off of Kam-Do as Fitz pulled her into the next room.

~o0o~

Lance and Bobbi had fallen into a comfortable silence. But Lance was at war with himself. Finally he spoke up, "I-uh-I asked Coulson to keep you here sorta against your will," he blurted. Bobbi just blinked at him, surprised, so he added, "But he said no."

Bobbi could tell that Lance was braced for an argument, so she smiled, "I don't know why you thought that was necessary. I'm not leaving."

Now Lance looked as surprised as Bobbi had, "But you said—"

"Do you really think I'd leave SHIELD?" Bobbi rolled her eyes, "It's all I've really known. It's been my safety net for years."

Lance snorted, "Because it's totally safe."

Bobbi ignored his retort, "Didn't you always complain that I put SHIELD before you?"

"Yeah," Lance sighed, "I am sorry about that. I know that you loved me more than SHIELD. You just have an over inflated sense of duty."

Before Bobbi could answer, Skye's voice came crackling through the loudspeaker.

~o0o~

The trip back through the stone was no less terrifying that it was the first time, even though they'd both done it before. But this time they could feel each other's hand in theirs.

~o0o~

Skye was about to call Coulson for the fifth time and complain about having to babysit a rock when the container opened by itself (scaring the crap out of Skye) and spit FitzSimmons out onto the floor.

"Oh my God!" Skye used the radio still in her hand to contact the rest of the team. The resident nerds were home!

 **A/N I have no idea what else is coming for this. I think there might be one more chapter. Please leave a review if you can!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N I know, I'm sorry it's been a while, but I've been busy. I realized after I posted the last chapter that it might have seemed a little rushed, with their escape and everything, but in the grand scheme of things that part isn't as important as what's gonna happen after FitzSimmons returns to SHIELD. There will be I don't know how many more chapters, so don't think it's over!**

Fitz and Simmons were stuck in quarantine upon their arrival, which would have given them time to actually talk, except everyone kept hovering over them. Skye was taking direction from Simmons on how to work the machines, Coulson popped in to debrief them, Bobbi rolled in on a wheel chair to give Fitz a pointed look, Hunter high-fived Fitz through the glass, and Mack stood glowering in the corner. May even called from wherever the heck she was to tell them that she was proud. It was great to be back, but Fitz just wanted some time to be alone. He wanted to talk about what the weird alien machine did (Jemma breezed over that in her debriefing), what the Kree themselves did, and what happened when they'd kissed. But everyone wouldn't leave them the hell alone!

Finally he was able to catch Skye's eye. She smiled knowingly at him and then shooed everyone out, saying, "C'mon, guys, FitzSimmons should get some rest."

It was startlingly quiet after everyone left. Jemma just looked at him.

"Uh," Fitz rubbed the back of his neck, "I figured we should, um, talk about, you know, things." He winced.

"Okay," Jemma sank slowly onto her bed, so Fitz followed suit on his identical one.

"What, uh, what—" Fitz stammered. He took a deep breath and Jemma smiled encouragingly. "I want to know what you want."

Jemma's smile was now sad. "If I wasn't so selfish you wouldn't be in here with me!" she said, sounding angry, which was a not so pleasant surprise for Fitz.

"What?" Fitz's only thought was that maybe Jemma thought somehow that she was selfish because he'd come to get her. But that didn't make any sense.

Jemma took a deep breath, "The Kree changed me, Fitz. I'm not completely human anymore, and I might be dangerous."

"Jemma . . ."

"Leo!" Jemma interrupted and Fitz let her because she never used his first name. "I can't—I can't take any chances, so please," her voice broke, "Please just stay away."

"Okay," Fitz swallowed and pulled his legs up onto the bed to prove that he'd keep distance between them, even thought that was the last thing he wanted to do. "Can we just talk, though?"

Jemma swallowed, "Sure."

~o0o~

After Skye kicked everyone out, they met in Coulson's office. Bobbi sat in her wheelchair next to Hunter, who looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. Coulson leaned back wearily against his desk, Skye standing next to him. Mack was as still as a statue next to one of the large windows and they'd also managed to pull May up on the video screen. She looked subtly different, like she'd actually been smiling for a while.

"Do we know exactly what happened?" May asked.

"No," Coulson answered, "We know that Fitz broke into the Kree fortress and got Simmons out,"

"Against orders," Mack interrupted.

Coulson gave him a look, but kept going, "The Kree preformed some kind of experimentation on Simmons, and we don't know exactly what that means. Simmons didn't seem to want to say."

"I don't blame her," Skye defended, "I know what it's like to feel tampered with and changed. Let me talk to her."

Coulson acknowledged Skye's request with a nod, "We'll find out more tomorrow. They both need rest and time to figure things out."

May caught the implication, "They're dating now?"

"Not quite," Skye said, "But closer to it than they ever have been. Or they were."

"Sir," Mack spoke up, "I'm just as glad as you that they're both alive, but I think we should address the breaches in protocol that allowed this to happen."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Skye demanded, but Coulson held up a hand.

"While Fitz disobeyed orders by following Simmons, he did so at his own risk. No one's taking action against him."

"But it wasn't at his own risk," Mack argued.

"Mack—" Bobbi started but Mack acted like he didn't hear her.

"They're both back here, on earth, with who knows what alien diseases or influence. They unlocked a whole new set of problem," Mack continued.

"So did the Inhumans!" Skye practically shouted, "But, oh, that's right, you didn't trust _us_ either!"

"You're mother gave us good reason!" Mack practically snarled.

Before things could escalate, Hunter broke in, putting his hand on Bobbi's shoulder as he did so, sensing that she wanted to interject herself, "Mack, what are you suggesting? What happened to you and Fitz being so close? Or was that a trick like everything else?"

"Lance," Bobbi entreated softly but urgently.

"Because I've become close to Fitz too, and I know that he'd do anything for Simmons or for any of us, and whatever you decide, whether it be marking him a threat and locking him up or kicking him out of SHIELD, he'll take it because he'll feel he deserves it. But he won't let you touch Simmons. We got through the Inhumans crisis, so we can get through this."

Mack gritted his teeth and stalked out without another word, leaving the rest of the room in silence. After a minute Bobbi softly said, "I'll go after him," and rolled herself out. Hunter stared after her.

~o0o~

"You don't have to tell me anything," Fitz said, "Unless you want to. But I don't care what they did to you," he paused, "I mean, I do care, it makes me really really angry, but you're still my Jemma Simmons and I'm still going to love you no matter what."

"Fitz . . ." Simmons said sadly, "I—I do love you, but I—" she stopped. "The Kree wanted me to become their weapon, to destroy the Inhumans." Fitz's eyes widened. "They taught me their history," she went on, "And they changed me. When you came, that was the end of the process. I didn't get to find out exactly what happened to me but Kam-Do—one of my teachers—implied that it would be impossible for us to, well . . ." she trailed off.

"So I _was_ too late," Fitz looked down, not meeting Simmons' eyes.

"It's not your fault," Simmons said hurriedly, "I asked them to finish the transformation."

"What?" Fitz's head snapped up, "Why? Didn't you know I'd come after you?"

"Of course I knew you'd try. That's why I did it," Simmons took a deep breath. "You went through hell to save me once and I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt again trying to find me. The Kree are dangerous."

"So your plan was . . ?" Fitz asked, trying to process everything she was telling him.

"To get sent on my 'mission' as quickly as possible and tell you to stop looking," Simmons wiped at a tear that had inadvertently squeezed its way out.

"What were you going to do when they asked you to kill the Inhumans?" Fitz demanded angrily.

"I don't know," Simmons shouted back, "They probably will come after me now anyway, so my plan is to get out of here as fast as possible.

"You can't give up your life for me!"

"You did for me!" Simmons scoffed, "You want to know why I took the mission at Hydra after your accident? I was too guilty and too mad and too shocked to face you. You didn't give me time to tell you how I felt about you giving your life for me, you didn't let me tell you that I'd rather die than see you the way you were. You gave up your amazing mind for me and would have given up more and a part of me thought that I deserved to give up what I cared for most too. So I gave up you. I left and I avoided you and I tried to make you hate me. I was punishing myself. Now I've finally found a way to repay you, and you still won't let me!"

Fitz had no idea what to say. He'd seen Simmons in some pretty bleak situations: dying from an incurable alien disease, stuck in a container at the bottom of the ocean, Trip's death and Skye's transformation, but he'd never seen her look as low as she did now. "I'm sorry. Are-are you sure you'll have to go?"

Simmons smiled sadly, "I don't know, but I can't take any chances, like I said."

Fitz jumped up and pushed himself next to her on her bed. She tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him. "I can. If you think you need to leave SHIELD, I'll come with you. We're a team, Jemma, we always have been and we always will be."

 **A/N The next chapter will deal with Simmons's new capabilities and more of how each of the team members reacts to them. Please feel free to let me know if you have a suggestion for a power you feel would fit her; I haven't quite solidified that part yet. I would also appreciate a review, if you have time.**


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